Humanoid Robot to Explore The moon in 2020

Japan announced the other day that they are creating a roadmap for sending humanoid robots to the Moon a a first step towards human-robot space exploration. The current roadmap as announced by Japan's Strategic Headquarters for Space Development includes sending the first humanoids to explore the Earth's natural satellite by 2020. This is only 11 years from now which makes Japan's project a very bold one. Humanoid robots can hardly navigate man-made environments with lots of structure on Earth, it is hard to believe that in the next decade robotics technology will advance so far that such robot astronauts will be possible.


I am not saying that bipedal robots will never be constructed and possibly become a major component of space missions. What I am saying is that I don't think this is going to happen by 2020. NASA has had a space robotics program for ever and the most advanced and reliable robots that they have been able to send to other planets, namely Mars, have all been wheeled rovers.

The next generation planetary explorers that NASA is preparing are also of the same kind albeit much larger and more mobile than the current and past generations. The ATHLETE rover for example is under heavy development as a future platform for exploring the Lunar surface and it's design makes much more sense than a bipedal machine. Also, don't forget about Google's Lunar X Prize which is an effort to encourage private industry to construct and send a small exploration rover to the Moon as cheaply and as quickly as possible.

At the end of the day, a rover has higher mobility, can carry a larger payload (instruments, batteries, solar panels) and can reliably navigate terrain of all kinds. To expect a bipedal robot to have such capabilities in a decade requires much ambition and lots of engineering breakthroughs.

I have a feeling that Japan is aiming for publicity more than practicality in space robotics. They have now scrapped plans for their manned space program and they have yet to start the construction of their Lunar lander. They believe it will take another 2 years before they figure out all the details regarding the announced robotics mission to the Moon. Maybe they are trying to get the media to talk about their robotics project and ignore that at the same time they announced plans for the construction and deployment of military satellites. Finally, Japan is also planning to create robotics technologies to help cleanup some of the debris floating in orbit around the Earth. This space garbage poses a huge hazard to satellites, the International Space Station, and any other man-made object that is sent into space.